From the Tech Museum to the Winchester Mystery House, here are San Jose’s best spots

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Members of the 501st Legion walks outside of the Tech Museum of Innovation before the 7 p.m. showing of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

An aerial view of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, on Wednesday, January 24, 2018. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group)

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Jim Gensheimer/Bay Area News Group

Sandra Galvez and Julio Alvarez, visiting from Miami, Florida, explore an exhibit on Moore's Law at the Computer History Museum Thursday, March 30, 2017, in Mountain View, Calif. (Jim Gensheimer/Bay Area News Group)

George Avalos / Bay Area News Group

The exterior of the old Bank of Italy building in downtown San Jose near
the corner of South First and East Santa Clara streets. An investor has
bought a ground-floor section of the historic Bank of Italy building in
downtown San Jose, a revival of the landmark tower.
George Avalos / Bay Area News Group

View of the statue commemorating Tommie Smith and John Carlos' world famous salute made on the victory stand in Mexico City at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games on the campus of San Jose State University in San Jose on March 13, 2007. Smith is one of the alums featured in the San Jose State University 150th Anniversary alumni interview section. (Joanne Ho-Young Lee/Mercury News)

(FILES) In this file photo taken on March 21, 2018 A lit sign is seen at the entrance to Facebook's corporate headquarters location in Menlo Park, California. - Facebook said Friday, October 12, 2018, that hackers accessed personal data of 29 million users in a breach at the world's leading social network disclosed late last month. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP)JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

(Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group

Kristina Newton of Discovery Bay poses for a photograph with 'XO,' an art installation by Laura Kimpton and Jeff Schomberg, the latest arrivals in the 'Playa to the Paseo' partnership to bring art from Burning Man to San Jose. The city is hosting free Valentine's Day photo shoots with the sculpture, in front of City Hall. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

Julie Kowalewski Ward of Santa Cruz, right, and her friend, Christina Mune of Santa Clara, pose for a selfie in front of an art installation by the team of Laura Kimpton and Jeff Schomberg, on Oct. 22, 2018, in downtown, San Jose. This installation and another one, located at the San Jose City Hall, are the latest arrivals in the "Playa to the Paseo" partnership to bring art from Burning Man to San Jose. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

Jimmy Biala, of San Jose, directs Bloco Del Sol as they perform during the South First Fridays art crawl in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 5, 2016. (Jim Gensheimer/Bay Area News Group)

The San Jose Museum of Art unveiled its new building signage this month.
The museum's old sign, which had become faded and tattered, was removed
several months ago, and the replacement uses new typography for the
museum's logo. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)

Welcome to Silicon Valley, basketball fans. You might have noticed there’s not a Golden Gate Bridge here, but San Jose and the surrounding area do have some sightseeing of its own — and there’s not even a bridge toll.

San Jose’s most famous building is probably the Winchester Mystery House, a sprawling 150-room mansion built by rifle heiress Sarah Winchester on the city’s outskirts. There is a lot of lore about the massive Victorian home on Winchester Boulevard and its onetime owner — most of it made up — but it’s still an architectural marvel and a tribute to a time before this valley was all about silicon. Take a tour or just stop by to check out the gardens and gift shop.

Just across the street from the Winchester house is Santana Row, a swanky shopping center with stores like H&M, Kate Spade and Tommy Bahama. The stellar lineup of restaurants includes Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chão, beer and sports emporium Yard House and Amber India. Not enough for you? It’s also got a Hello Kitty Cafe and a Tesla dealership.

Believe it or not, San Jose is actually the oldest city in California — founded in 1777 as a civil settlement — and was the state’s first capital in 1850. (Sure, it was for just a year, but it counts.) Sadly, most historic buildings downtown were lost to redevelopment efforts over the past half-century, but a few remain. The Bank of Italy building, a 255-foot tower on the corner of Santa Clara and First streets built in 1925, was the tallest structure between Los Angeles and San Francisco until 1970. The oldest building in San Jose, though, is the Peralta Adobe on the grounds of the popular San Pedro Square Market. Built in 1797, it takes its name from Luis Maria Peralta, its most famous resident, and is across the street from the Fallon House, a restored, two-story home built in the 1850s.

If you want to get a flavor of Silicon Valley, though, you can take drives past the headquarters of Facebook in Menlo Park, Google in Mountain View and the famed Apple Park, the tech giant’s famed “spaceship” headquarters in Cupertino. Most are closed to the public, but you can stop by the Apple Park Visitor Center. You’ll get the best sense of how these companies and those that came before them — like Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Xerox — changed the world at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, which includes the signature exhibition “Revolution: The First 2,000 Years of Computing.”

Looking for some spiritual help for the team? We’ve got a couple of historical houses of worship — St. Joseph Cathedral Basilica in San Jose and Mission Santa Clara — that are worth visiting even if your team doesn’t need extra prayer. The fifth church on its site in downtown San Jose, the ornate St. Joseph’s was built in 1877 and underwent a multimillion-dollar restoration in the 1980s. Mission Santa Clara, founded in 1777 by Junipero Serra as California’s eighth mission, is on the grounds of Santa Clara University and serves as the university chapel.

And any sports fan should take a walk through San Jose State’s campus, just east of downtown. But not to see the ivy-covered Tower Hall or to take in the outstanding view from the top floor of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Main Library. No, it’s to see the statues of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, both SJSU alums, that captures their protest in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The larger-than-life statues still cast a long shadow, as they should.

Sal Pizarro has written the Around Town column for The Mercury News since 2005. His column covers the people and events surrounding the cultural scene in Silicon Valley. In addition, he writes Cocktail Chronicles, a feature column on Silicon Valley bars and nightclubs.

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